Why the Path of Exile Community is Very Upset

[@Moz96]

Archnemesis was fine as a standalone thing. If I died to an unkillable, infinite damage rare monster, that was my own fault because I willingly created it. Now I don't have a choice if it's tankier than Uber Sirus.

[@marc789]

For now the archnemesis i struggle the most is lightning mirage. Shit spit out lightning clone way to fast.

[@airy9461]

I had a soul eater hasted echoist splinterer sentinel mob that I swear was tankier than shaper

[@hansbansor5170]

@@marc789 I think there are too many mods which spawn things under your feet.

[@killercore311]

@@marc789 they nerfed that btw L M A O. It's suppose to spit out less or do less damage I forgot, but honestly nice it still mercs me.

[@rubberdogmagnus8536]

True

[@SquierBS]

I appreciate the calm way you worked through this mess of an update. And I will take your message to heart. I am one of those long-time players. With 4000 hours and eight years of my life invested I never thought I would see the game I love change so drastically, that I would have to distance myself, but you are right. I am not enjoying the game in this state and it is indeed affecting me outside the game as well. I will turn to other games and hope to return in the future.

[@adrianoprado6694]

Same here. Started on rampage league around 2013-2014, with 4200 hours on steam + a thousand more or less on standalone client.. Time for some days off.

[@pon3d120]

Try some other ARPGs, so that when you come back a year from now you have points of comparison for why you like PoE. Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, and Warframe were personal favourites during my break.

[@SquierBS]

@@pon3d120 Thanks for the tip, but I have been exploring this genre for a bit longer than I'd like to admit. I started with D2 way back in the day and have alot of other references like Torchlight, Grim Dawn and even Warframe as well. So I really know why I love PoE so much and I don't think anything can fill the hole it will leave. Instead I think I will get back on some shooters like Valorant and Hunt Showdown, while keeping an eye out for any positive changes to PoE. Cheers mate =)

[@ssllsg9439]

@@SquierBS been playing LOL nowadays.....hoo boy.i would rather playing with a bunch o toxic players than playing in a game that has no loot.

[@DsgSleazy]

I'll be fine while they sort this mess out, it's time for me to go back to Destiny anyways.

[@Empyriangaming]

Thanks for this video Ziggy. I was so close to including that Steelmage clip in mine and I’m glad you did.

[@jeffersonribeiro8072]

Empy he quoted 50-80% less loot but second your groups math it was something closer to 90%, teorically GGG will say something like we will buff loot 2x and it will be still WAY worse than before, why is no one caring about this ?

[@604RPM]

Thanks for your content on this issue. Hopefully it helps organize the community around expecting more from GGG in the future.

[@MrScotteeh]

@@jeffersonribeiro8072 Well from what I understand the impact on loot is entirely different player to player and strat to strat. Since a big part of the nerf was to mobs from league mechanics, its going to be a much bigger nerf for his group due to the sheer amount of league-specific mobs they shove into their maps with their investment, whereas most average players will be putting a lot less investment into their maps, meaning less league-specific mobs, which in turn means less of an effect of the nerf to league specific mob drop rates. Should make sure to mention I disagree with GGG's decision overall :P just that it needs to be noted that the effect this has had on the majority of the playerbase is smaller than what you're hearing from the uber-juicers.

[@CypherOfSolace]

Archenemies just needs to be it's own mechanic that can roll on maps like Nemesis or Beyond. Thus keeping them out of where they don't belong like delve heist and blight.

[@fakesmilez1]

The idea of archnemesis is great, it's the execution that is awful. The modifiers just straight up brick or greatly hinder most builds... better and more unique modifiers would have made the much better (it's okay for them to be tankier but at least give players some work arounds or windows of opportunity to actually deal damage)

[@Adoptulous]

True lol if the only place archnemesis went was on the 30% More Rare Monsters map mod instead of nemesis this whole thing could have been avoided, because that mod is supposed to be quite hard

[@nastycat143]

yes ur right

[@toukoenriaze9870]

Put archnem in metamorph and remove it from all other content ... Metamorph with archnem mods is basically low fat archnem league owo

[@daviddoll6042]

I honestly thought archnemesis was going to replace metamorph in some way

[@23ChickenWings]

Thanks for the calm and measured video Ziggy! Appreciate your sentiment that we should keep our mental health in mind and disengage from the game/community if needed.

[@janpesek4862]

I second above post. It is unfortunate I have chosen this league to return to Path of Exile after a long break but I will play for a while and if I do not enjoy myself, I will simply move on. GGG has lost my trust long time ago and it seems things have not improved much while I took break.

[@goncharov_motion]

@@janpesek4862 exatcly the same situation with me

[@betabotz4391]

DAMAGE CONTROL DAMAGE CONTROL HAHAH

[@Canceraq]

@@janpesek4862 same here m8. Last Epoch is getting closer to my heart

[@Tattlebot]

Disengage with the game and engage with... the news! America is now a nuclear terror state, actively bombing a nuclear power plant through proxy forces? time to disengage from the news! Take up real life Harvest.

[@suntzuvii1154]

Nice, well thought out commentary! The way I see it is thus: POE is a very complicated slot machine that makes you grind hard to increase the odds of receiving rewards, even though it is never enough to really feel satisfied. Take away the hope for rewards, and people will, and should, quit the game.

[@arthurrosa9403]

I just play it cuz it's fun, so it doesn't change much for me in the gameplay side. The unnerving thing is that they didn't comunicate. Games should learn from Warframe. Even when they want to fuck you up, they come say they will do it, why they will do it, if people curse them they laugh it off, and that's that. Chris seems to have lost his way and be acting tyrannically over the decisions, so much so, that I doubt the team has any idea where he is skewing the game towards. Leaders can use micromanagement to alienate people from the big picture, and it feels like that is happening.

[@Pastrahmy]

Exactly... They're all upset because they poured 40 hours into the game in two days and have nothing to show. I play casually and enjoy this league just as much as others.

[@MrMintyfreshsmell]

The rewards have always been shit. You basically have to grind currency and hope you can buy what you need from someone else. If they had a smart loot system to at least throw you a piece of gear you needed every once in a while I think the game would be a lot more popular than it is and players would be happier

[@ZeroEdge69]

The explanation you just gave is why I quit after the league that following Heist. No matter how much time I dedicated to a league, I never hit anything on the "slot machine" to make a decent build reach for higher levels, even when going for "low cost" builds. Was always something missing that I could never get right, even playing in Softcore Trade League (the game is punishing enough at times, not going to make it worse on myself). Harvest was the one mechanic that felt like they were giving people an out, where time invested could yield good results. And then that got gutted, and never came back. But RNG stacked on RNG seems to be what GGG feels is engaging gameplay, and that hasn't changed. And I can happily say, I am glad I quit when I did, cause becoming more and more frustrated every league, was not enjoyable. And I can only imagine it would have grown more if I had kept playing.

[@Ran-dom1]

@@Pastrahmy why are you commenting on a game you know nothing about then? casual? You enjoy nothing? cool thats your own preference. You probably don't even get to maps and have never killed a single end game boss. If you "enjoy" this league. lol We've "poured" 40 hours into every single league leading up this this, and for the most part, been paid our dues. The time you need to invest, does not correlate with the amount of time in a league... BECAUSE UR END GAME CRAFTING IS GONE. It's a game, not a fucking endless grind simulator. It's people like you who know nothing about this, which are like "it's fine and dandy" look at their profile, they're level 50 two weeks in. like what?! legit the ONLY ones who SHOULD BE commenting, and raising CONCERNS, ARE PEOPLE WHOVE BEEN HERE SINCE THE START. The long time grinders, the people who know the game inside and out. Bro, you don't balance a game around the shitters or the pro's it's always the MAJORITY. THEY BALANCED LOOT AROUND GROUP PLAY THIS LEAGUE, YOU KNOW THE .05%? I'm actually stunned by this community. Like if ur a casual, then shut the fuck up and continue being a casual. Ur gunna harm the game. If people like you have any voice. Ur gunna fucking cull it.

[@hellfurian]

I appreciate your calm and honest recap of whats been going on. I am really disappointed in how things have been implemented and communicated by ggg. I’ve never seen the community so united in its anger. I hope GGG responds quickly and with more liberal and bold improvements

[@nicokarsen6131]

it's had to stay calm when atrocities like these are being committed. the humanity! how can we go on?

[@candycommander]

GGG is going to keep doing what they do unless they get hit in the bank account.

[@SunnyBloop]

@CraftnStuffs Thing is, Last Epoch and Diablo 4 are kind of GGGs only real competitors right now, and with D4 still so far away, and LE having significantly lower content, they simply don't feel threatened enough to care. It'll be interesting to see how GGG react when LEs 0.9 update goes live - players are already jumping ship now, and the LE reddit is seeing an influx of players already; if this poor treatment continues, GGG will probably find themselves screwed once LE (and D4) hit the markets properly. I sincerely don't think PoE 2 is going to be enough to "save the game", and yet, GGG seems very adamant that it will...

[@huldu]

I really don't like the balance of these archnemesis monsters. As a newer player it's extremely frustrating to kill a map boss with no issues but then get one shot by some spawn from hell archnemesis on the SAME map. Playing a melee build I don't even know you're suppose to deal with some of these, the second you get close to them you die because there are so many bad spell effects taking place at the same time. The only one I've seen so far that at least has a cooldown and the mobs aren't spamming is the fireball nova or whatever you call it. The rest just seems like, okay, time to die again. It is so not fun to play the game honestly.

[@Zactastical]

Yeah, I'm bummed :( The changes haven't had much of a negative impact on me directly, but I agree with all the criticisms and I care about the health of the community.

[@Member_zero]

I'm on the same boat. I feel players who will be hit mostly are SSF players. Because trade league, you have trade. Less drops simply means items are more valuable. I feel chaos orb is at least 2 times as valuable this league than in 3.18, if not more. When league is very rewarding, everything you find is worthless. Or in other words - you would need at least 200 - 300 chaos to buy a divine by now, if old system was in place. Meaning more casual players have a harder time. Because they get their chaos by farming heist and chaos recipie. But players like the feeling of getting a lot of loot. It's the dopamine hit. So, If players start quiting because of less rewarding system, I have the feeling the change, even if logical from the outside, might not be the best choice for the game.

[@SchmidiWoW]

Extremely well-made video. Making a documentation that is not overloaded with emotion is very useful.

[@mrmatejator]

Funniest thing is that we can rougly estimate this historic bonus by looking at Tormented spirit: 'Quantity +1850% Rarity +5000%' Which when you compare to now to 'Quantity +200-300%' you get very bleak picture. Of course this change will mostly effect super juiced T16 maps but it will also trickle down to less chellenging parts of the game. Conclusion is 'Just play Heist' or 'T1 maps with essences and strongboxes.' Enjoy!

[@blackkimchics]

It doesn't even trickle down, which is another part of the issue. On the whole, loot has just felt unrewarding. PoE is approaching Lost Ark in the "enjoy having this second job" tier rather than being a game and the lack of response is concerning.

[@glaive120]

@@blackkimchics It does trickle down, as in, early maps will have less loot and itll be harder to sustain maps. Did you understand what he means by trickles down?

[@blackkimchics]

@@glaive120 Yes, I'm saying it doesn't trickle down; completely, across the board, there is less loot for maps and gameplay in general. Trickle down would be to imply there is threshold for incredible/bountiful loot as you continue up the metaphorical stream, or that it only primarily effects pure endgame and marginally effects leveling. That doesn't seem to be the case. If anything, return on investment seemingly gets worse as you spend more on maps, and even leveling my character(s) felt really bleh. By the time I got to maps I just uninstalled once I realized the amount of time I would have to spend getting mats, bubblegum, or anything I was interested in doing. Heists are cool but that's not really what I was looking forward to.

[@egoboost13]

@@blackkimchics you're quite literally missing the point of "it trickles down"...it's meaning that it being unrewarding at the highest tiers trickles down to it being even MORE unrewarding at the lower tiers...which is accurate.

[@kliersheed]

@@egoboost13 well since it is global it does as much trickle down as it snowballs up. top 1% players cant hyper-juice and produce us all the rare uniques / uber boss drops / etc. which we casuals cant dream to get access to on SSF (basically) but at the same time we casuals grind all the stuf they buy in bulk which is way to little return for them to farm themself.

[@whitecomet98]

The fact that all these changes and nerfs were completely left out of the patch notes while Chris appeared on livestreams to supposedly be transparent is heartbreaking. The trust and faith I had for this game was completely thrown away.

[@StaticOrgy]

Buy the supporting packs!

[@ChuckYuuu]

Something happened in the last couple years that has created a disconnect from Chris's original vision and what he says on livestreams vs the actual game. It's very dissipointing when you can't take his word on the state of the game

[@shannonnezul4903]

@@ChuckYuuu that something is tencent

[@TheRewyn]

It would be terrible if it was even the first time, but it happens every League lately. This is just the worst offense.

[@hellboy19991]

@@shannonnezul4903 what does tencent have to do with that?

[@YuriDSC]

It's not normal for a rare mob to take me as long as clearing the whole map and in the end drops 3 scrolls. As for Harvest, at this point they might as well remove it altogether.

[@MrPrankmastergeneral]

I wish that that if content creators have chance to speak to Mark again to pressure him into explaining why Nerfing Harvest even more was in game's best interest. I have no idea how to craft my own gear now other then spamming essences . I cant use harvest, I cant craft with meta mods because farming divine orbs is impossible. I hope that D4 curb stomps GGG into the ground. I guess I will check out new D3 season, I haven't played it in years, and I do itch for some casual item progression.

[@pompejio]

Now I know what they meant with "get your magic-find characters ready".. I rather would nerf the map-sustain, make it hard like it was at the beginning of PoE. Makes way more sense.

[@MrRainbowsoup]

Great summary of everything that’s come up over launch weekend. Thanks for using your platform to (hopefully) help enact some change. Has been such a disheartening league start so far. Easily the most disappointed I’ve been in the 8 or so years I’ve played.

[@betabotz4391]

ZiggyD's damage control :D

[@CougaKitty-gg6kb]

Leaves out the fact that you can't keep minions alive even when you give them all defences you possibly can. A nerf to minion damage would have been fine but the fact you can't do anything past red tier maps without your minions dying literally kills the game for minion players.

[@Chris-iv8sb]

Minion damage was already nerfed alongside their survivability, as far as I've read.

[@tehf00n]

in 48 hours of play from Friday launch to Monday I saw one "touched" rare. The loot was ok but I wanted to see more of them in that time. Not only that, I never saw one exalt, divine or anullment orb. I couldn't even fall back on harvest/essence to gear up because harvest is dead and essence mobs were too tanky/tough for my gear and still missed the rng on usable essences. I did a lvl8 beyond boss in the Lake and it dropped 3x dragonscale doublet rares. So now I am saving all my lakes for when they inevitably buff it. I like the new beyond changes, but the tainted items are broken.

[@TheYoutubeUser69]

They're not gonna buff it. 50k people on Steam alone still play. They don't give a shit about us

[@Valaryant.]

@@TheKZbinUser69 Of course they don't, is a company, so start talking with ur wallet, keep it shut, they will listen.

[@mrlacksoriginality4877]

Found 2 divines and 2 exalts in the same time. I guess that is why i am indifferent about it.

[@Valaryant.]

@@mrlacksoriginality4877 Till u get hit by a streak of bad RNG and start caring or, maybe u are indeed being kissed by the gods and good luck drops keep raining at ur feet, still that wont change the fact that they nerfed drops to the ground, by around 80% on League mobs, it is stated by their community posts, "what we are working on" clearly says so. So what if, u give some of the less fortunate some empathy and care, at least a bit.

[@mrlacksoriginality4877]

@@Valaryant. I found them both in the league mechanic which everyone says is shit. From two currency boxes. The change will mainly impact those that super juice up maps. I haven't got up to that bit yet, just started red maps. I havent found divines yet in the past 10 hours but i got 2 divines worth of currency doing heist and expedition.

[@vimzim8576]

I'm looking forward to when GGG make hardmode, I am going to play it when it comes out so I am not averse to very hard challenges. But, I feel that challenge should be self-determined and not something that is forced on people. Uber uber bosses are very challenging, but you don't want one of those chasing you every map and to some extent this is what GGG is doing by forcing Archnemesis rares onto people whos builds are not capable of handling those combos. You CHOOSE to do a hard boss when you feel you are prepared and your build is capable of it. My main problem with Archnemesis isn't that it is too hard, my problem is I feel I can't play fun meme builds because they are not strong enough to handle that content in a reasonable manner. I don't want to dark souls my way through every rare mob. if I want a dark souls kind of experience, I will play one of those games. There seems to be a conflict between GGG and the community in terms of what is fun. GGG has been prepared to eat humble pie when it comes to them being wrong in the past but we seem to have hit an impassable obstacle when it comes to difficult vs fun. There are certain things GGG hates, like deterministic crafting, they seem to throw these morsels out and despite their own beliefs, the two leagues that had had Harvest in it's most purest form have had the best player retention rates. For me it wasn't so much I could make god tier gear but the fact that I could over time progressively make my items better without bricking it. Recombobulators also allowed for more gear progression over time and they are gone. Harvest is for the most part dead. I think GGG has taken RNG as far as it can go, they do not have any desire to make a more meaningful gear progression system so we eventually get to a point sooner rather than later that we feel a character is done... you can either go to a new character or play something else. If GGG stands still for too long, it will only be a matter of time until another developer sees the fundamental weaknesses of their design and vision and do to PoE what GGG did to Diablo 3. I think GGG were far more innovative as a small studio, i think the graphics and engine and system look amazing but design-wise we have hit stagnation, it has been a long time since Forsaken Masters in 1.2, Ascendancy in 2.2, even Fall of Oriath in 3.0 was in 2017. I've liked some of the leagues, Delve and Betrayal in 2018 were good external system. Echoes of the Atlas in 3.13 gave us a more interesting take on the Atlas and it was expanded in 3.17 but I think character progression/development has been neglected for too long. ARPG is all about killing mobs and getting loot, we are so far from the point picking anything up off the ground is considered remotely good or finished and the tools we once had to turn them into something finished have been stripped away. I just feel the vision of the game has been blurred, like it now has far too many cooks spoiling the broth. I guess it is why indie studios that make great games eventually turn into EA or Blizzard or other developers. I think there are just too many people involved and we have a lack of clarity. Communication has faltered and in the absence there has been animosity growing on the forums and reddit.

[@sanct4296]

Couldn't agree more.

[@btarczy5067]

You said it better than I ever could. Thank you!

[@RobertoCorsini]

Very nice post. Thank you.

[@controlledsingularity8084]

You aknowledge that ARPG is all about killing mobs and picking loot, so how can you be excited about a game mode that can be summed up as "we remove 99.9% of the loot lmao" ??

[@kostya555666]

Pls. Do not compare these encounters with dark souls. That's an insult for dark souls. Dark souls is not fun because its hard. Dark souls is fun because its very well balanced and designed, without random bullshit like in this game. And, unlike this game, in dark souls all enemy encounters are deterministic and you can learn how to deal with every situation. But in this game you just bruteforce braindead DPS check through the majority of encounters after learning basic movement and flask+skill rotation. Besides that. Good post. IMHO we need more nerfs to loot+currency/maps drop buff+all items are well rolled(smart loot?), and then balance whole game for that idea. Like make armaments blueprints drop well well rolled items, uber bosses drop well well well rolled items so you have more reasons to do them besides unique drop. They actually have tools to test that, its called void races... Like... Why not?

[@gerbo8018]

You forget the minion changes making permanent minions as good as unusable in end game. You can also see that on what minion builds exist in poe ninja. Animate guardian -> the most tanky minion in the game. Dies with top gear on t16 base maps. This alone gives minion builds another nerf on top of all we got in the patchnotes.

[@TheofilosMouratidis]

and you lose that gear when it dies...which makes it even worse

[@hunterofthestars]

yea i've been running a golemancer this league and i have to spend most of time in lake of kalandra resummoning my zombies and spectres because they die so much. and this is with every defence/life minion node on the tree

[@gerbo8018]

@@TheofilosMouratidis yup its a pain

[@kazumablackwing4270]

@@hunterofthestars running SRS and having the same issue, despite having also taken the life nodes on the tree to both make the srs pops punchier as well as beef up the spectres and zombies. Feels like I have to resummon every other lake section

[@leafgreenbeast]

@@hunterofthestars tbh i've given up on spectres entirely. it's only by the grace of god that my holy relics arent dead 100% of the time

[@ShewTheMighty]

Thanks for this Ziggy. I was a returning player after a year or so hiatus. I made it to yellow maps on my 75 RF In SCtrade. The game was fine, i was excited to play again but after day 3 something felt off. then the community backlash kicked in. The realization that the struggle post starting maps was not unique to me as a casual and returning player and that it wasn't likely to get better was demoralizing to say the least. Glhf exile

[@Failzz8]

Game is fine in red maps honestly. Last couple of leagues I have struggled early maps with progression a bit, but once I got into red maps it was smooth sailiing, this league has been no different, playing a RF trickster this time.

[@ShewTheMighty]

@@Failzz8 now when you say fine in red maps are you referring to your characters ability to clear and survive or drops? My experience is much like what's covered in the video. My build is fine, game play is fine aside from the occasional arche mod that just makes for long fights and little fun, it just feels unrewarding. Found an exalted orb before maps and it's pretty much worthless, can't find fusings to save my life, having to sell utility flasks to get alchs, if not for beasts I'd be strapped for chromes, wearing zero found gear, all 1-2c pieces I had to trade for, etc etc. It's just a struggle. I can do it but the pace of progress is so slow I don't know that I want to, if that makes sense.

[@Failzz8]

@@ShewTheMighty Both, divines are the new exalts and they're worth a lot, got 2 of them so far. Harverst I found to be particularily good for currency, despite all the hate it's been getting. As far as harvest goes, I only have the wheel top right from the start of the atlas tree, but I'm getting around 1-2k life force per grove in low reds, which translates into about 15c and thanks to blocking mechanics and stream of consciousness I'm getting harvest nearly every map. Alchs I do struggle with, but I haven't specced into harbingers and I haven't done any heisting yet, both of which I think would fix that problem. Luckily my buddy went for harbingers first and he apparently has enough alchs for the two of us lol. Overall I'd say the atlas passives play a vital role early on now, I think if you're not going for some useful stuff quickly, you could severely cripple your atlas progression and my guess is that's what's happening to a lot of people right now.

[@ShewTheMighty]

@@Failzz8 @Stee atlas optimization is probably a fair observation but it seems like poor game design to force specific atlas specialization in order to even reach base level progression. I also don't think any atlas optimization solves to general item drops being poo pop at the moment just currency to progress maps and buy gear from others. There is already a base meta required to have a viable starter character build. Creating a state where we have yet another required meta by insisting your starter atlas tree must be 'X' or your starved for this or that feels bad. Atlas should just be as simple as playing and optimizing for the content you enjoy with some options being a min/max choice or preference. Not a requirement. My problem with the divine change is simple: GGG's statement: exalts and divines have the same drop chance and rarity but exalts are overvalue because of how much more use it has in crafting. The issue (as I understood it): ggg wanted to resolve exalts being 10x the value of divines and balance the two based on equivalent rarity. (My interpretation of) the solve: adjust some crafting recipes to use divines (but not all) to add value to divines. The miss: they just created a system where divines are now worth 10x an exalt. It is just the same problem flipped. At that point why bother? They didn't fix the problem they set out to solve or at least they didn't solve the problem they communicated.

[@Failzz8]

@@ShewTheMighty Fair on the atlas meta, but it's workable for the time being and won't be an issue late game, and I'm sure they'll address it either later this league or next league. The divine/exalt thing I'm sure is on purpose, they want exalts to be used for slams instead of being almost exclusively used for trading and put divines in that spot instead. Divines fit that role much better, as them being expensive means unique drops retain their value due to rolls being important when we can't just spam divines to get good rolls, while they're still gonna be used up for late game min-maxing regardless of their price.

[@JuiceInThePocket]

Great video Ziggy! I'm putting down POE for a bit myself while they sort themselves out.

[@Emoriatwc]

Best loot ive gotten from rares was 100 armor scraps and im suffering with map drops it sucks i hate hate hate buying maps

[@jambosuss]

I got lucky, and a rare in act 10(i think) dropped 3 6 links. Managed to get about 100c and get some stuff like usual, but I didn't realise at the time that everything was super borked until I wasn't even getting many chaos or fusings.

[@FunkyyCat_]

Agreed, being forced to buy maps is one of the worst feelings in poe

[@bradreeder7635]

GGG broke rule #1. "Don't F with the loot"... D3 nods and smiles.

[@Jay-vp3kk]

Thank you Ziggy for this fact based and informational video, I really appreciate this type of content as opposed to several (very prominent) other PoE youtubers who just in the past day made 10-20min clickbaity drama videos about how the game is completely broken and there is no point to play anymore. I commented on some of those videos as well saying how it wasn't helpful to just drum up the drama without talking about any of the facts or doing any research about what has actually changed with the game. So I felt I needed to do the opposite here and show my appreciation for someone taking the time to actually add meaningful information to the dialoge. You and Grimro are doing a great job sticking to the facts and presenting objective information. We need more of this, because this is what developers will listen to, and the other PoE youtubers should take note and stop presenting what is essentially PoE reddit level whining and bitching on youtube.

[@oone1]

One thing to note, you mentioned that loot was nerfed by an estimated 50-80%, Empyrian's group did math and found that their loot had dropped by 97%. Keep in mind, this is at the very top levels of optimized magic find mapping, but indicates the drop nerfs might be closer to the 80% estimate than the 50 for the average player. I for one would not have sustained alchemy orbs in red tier maps had I not been on trade league. I am also pretty frustrated that such a change was not on the patch notes. Just my experience would love to hear others'

[@Oswanov]

It's definitely skewed a bit for party play, considering the amount of juice that comes from league mechanics in particular. Definitely not even close to 97% for most players, but still noticeably less loot.

[@604RPM]

The obvious counterpoint to Empy's group not profiting is that they are paying 3.18 prices for 3.19 juice. Juice is clearly not worth what it used to be worth, and the market needs to adjust. Alchemy orbs might be the new main trade currency if they are needed to roll maps and difficult to sustain. ... But is that a game anyone wants to play? I am very much not enjoying these changes in the game this league. Unfortunately I like the challenge rewards so I'm going to have to see if I can manage to grind them out before losing my mind.

[@alilweeb7684]

@@604RPM i think the profit side was just for raw comparison, and, as they said . they wanted to fully juice their maps with the strongest methods, and even then they got a 6c profit per person

[@lunarath1]

While I play on trade league I usually just try to casually craft and gear by myself. Double that with me usually playing pretty off meta builds. This time I struggled gearing my past early yellow maps, and even those were a struggle, where as usually I can at least get to red maps with steady upgrading during the progress. It just feels like I have to stop and farm low tier maps for upgrades a lot more than I have ever needed to before.

[@pon3d120]

The thing is, I would actually be in favour of these changes had they been in the patch notes. I’ve been thinking it was too easy to sustain red maps last league, but trying to sneak in such changes absolutely makes me not enjoy the league at all. Instead of seeing it as a challenge to gear up with less loot, the game just feels empty.

[@KzaInc]

Also the removal of ultra-wide support after teasing ultra-wide UI improvements. Infuriating.

[@MrZanderson]

Wait so now you can't play in ultrawide? That's some bs. I've been taking a break for a few leagues now, but this is bad news for me.

[@MrMrTravman]

They removed support? Lol what the actual fuck. WHY?!?!

[@Cerbenix_]

Afaik they removed 32:9 for obvious advantages. 21:9 is still there.

[@Fiard2]

Problem: Heist is much more profitable than almost all other activities in the game. Solution: Heist chest rewards have 90% less quantity of items found, and further heist monsters also provide 70% less chance to drop heist specific items.

[@adamhunter1223]

The GGG balance philosophy in a nutshell.

[@андрейххх-щ6л]

Problem: game is fun Solution: nerf the fk out of everything *thumbs up*

[@tukkek]

I don't even think it's the wrong direction to take the game but they do it with a 1,000% adjustment, then the community goes mental, then they roll it back and literally nothing gets done and no one is happy. WTF Chris?!

[@patchworkcat6932]

You forgot "heist monsters now have 300% more life and damage."

[@GenocideLv]

the sad part is thats only 1 of 3 major simultaneous problems, 4 if you count developer transparency and good faith

[@nothingface5919]

Also lest we forget they nerfed minion HP to the point where you can invest mirrors into minion defense and they will still die in tier 11 maps, making many of them virtually unplayable to characters while league starting not from a damage perspective... but from a pure play-ability perspective. The minion nerf was so hard that many of us necromancers went into standard and tested minion HP with hundreds of chaos worth of defensive gear only to have them pop like zits three seconds into a map... THIS MUST CHANGE.

[@NineSeptims]

Nice pfp let it die

[@TheYoutubeUser69]

Minion changes working as intended. I suggest you look for another game to play, Poe ain't it anymore

[@TheSilverwing999]

Yeah the minion health change and the fact they die all the damn time is one of the worst changes in this league for me. I don't understand why they would do this

[@OromisGlaedr]

Golems, thankfully, weren't hit as bad as other minions, but it basically locks you into playing Cold Iron Point to give the flat life scaling with levels. Even still, there have been some ArchNem mods that end up taking multiple repetitions of me running away to resummon the golems after they die.

[@chrismanuel9768]

Minions are meant to die. You aren't meant to have an army while also fighting personally. If you wanna do minions, you have to spend your time maintaining your minions. Summoning, healing, and buffing. They're not free damage.

[@xpoohx105]

Thanks ZiggyD I really can't tell you how much I appreciate you being on the side of the community on this one. Being careful with your language and focusing on what's important. I just can't thank you enough for being a positive voice. You really helped me feel a lot less lost about this whole thing as PoE is a really big part of my life and I have been really struggling the last two days. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

[@TurbulentEitri]

I've been taking a fair break from the game after having played it for so many years. Was hoping to get back into it with the release of PoE2, but it seems I managed to avoid some weird times in doing so. Hopefully this all gets resolved neatly and in good time.

[@FreshDougie236]

Poe2 fixing all of this is just Copium. We are already moving towards the shit loot system they want in Poe2

[@TurbulentEitri]

@@FreshDougie236 Took the break just before these issues began so I wasn't expecting it to be a fixer so much as an improvement on the PoE that I left.

[@michisauer]

Same here... Even before League Start I told my friends I was taking this league off, because the magnitude of changes in the manifesto seemed to show towards negative trend. The only positive thing being the changes on harvest. Now I am glad I did not start and got away from some frustration at last.

[@1320crusier]

Ive been playing PoE less and less because of the asinine way GGG makes changes. This just makes me not want to play it at all.

[@NLemessage]

haha I'm doing the same.

[@SpaceBrotha]

I've not thrummed up a lot about it after launch, since there's more general problems too, but the kalandra announcement stream also showcased some examples of the new summoner base items they put in. Problem is that now that the league is out and we have access to those bases that the items they showcased are impossible, in some cases more ways than just one. The bone ring has 5 suffixes in their announcement trailer, and one of those is a lightning resistance mod that's some +20% higher than you can even roll on rings. The shield also has at least 4 prefixes, nevermind the amount of suffixes. They literally made it so that the summoner bases looked like they would be getting new hybrid mods that would allow you to keep resists while also getting minion mods, which was a big concern about the new rings. Except you can't make those, both the shield and the rings have pretty much the same mods as other items of that type, but with minion mods added to the list that are competing for both prefixes and suffixes. So yeah, it's been an unwelcome surprise after another ever since league launch.

[@lello333]

and u did not mention about the divine / exalt change, wich is the cherry on the top of this cake! well done GGG :D

[@Dom-pu5hj]

Well said at the end there. After such highs from the last league, the bottom scraping lows of this league are felt so much harder. After losing sleep to grind the first couple of days, it felt good to just disconnect from an unfun experience. Ultimately I uninstalled, and I’m happier for it.

[@Hunter-lm6bp]

Excellent presentation of this video. As a Lost Ark convert, this helped me know what's going on now with the game that's brought me so much joy. I'm glad to see that PoE still has a great community that cares.

[@RichHeart89]

"As a side note. We reduced the amount of loot in the game by 95% Get your magic find characters ready!" If Empy and their group make 5c per player in profit for juicing t16 maps, how is a casual pleb like me supposed to get anything? It's almost not worth alching a map at this point

[@Idlanir]

I don't even have alcs

[@akaiappears]

You guys are getting alchs?

[@RichHeart89]

I'm vendoring identifying and vendoring rare items and uniques to sustain alchs but it's a constant struggle : D

[@Clubgeist]

@@akaiappears yes I had 50 alchs after doing like 10 maps which is equal to any league before

[@akaiappears]

@@Clubgeist You're late to the party

[@Fallub]

Thank you very much for summarizing all of this. As someone who did not play this league, I had no idea why people were that upset.

[@ejun251]

Fantastic summary of the community perspective. I really hope GGG watches this and takes notes. Thanks for stepping up when we need you the most, Ziggy :D

[@battlecarrier]

Something I've been wondering for a while: Are we having the correct discussion regarding loot? Or should we be talking about the overinflated state of PoE's trade league economy? The way I see it is that the base cost of making a character in trade league has been going up and up and up every league, but it hasn't affected the people that race to the finish and then essentially print currency. The moment that's knocked down a peg it seems the full force of how expensive it is to do anything in this game hits everyone.

[@jaredekle2562]

Every league it gets worse and in terms of difficulty (HC) it's got to the point where you have to follow the top 1 percent builds to do any content, how the fuck are we supposed to afford that if everyone is doing that build

[@ivpiv5933]

I absolutely agree. the clip with steelmage sums up POE atm. "whats the point of softcore trade if you cant juice, and whats the point off SSF if you cant craft" So whats the point of SC if i cant print currency, and whats the point of ssf if i cant just make the items i need... POE is more of an mmo light at this point than an arpg. The entire game, like mmos, is balacenced and developed around the tastes, and interests of people who don't actually play the game, but "work" the game. Meaning they are making money on making guides, streamer or the likes. And just as you say, everything just gets so expensive in base currency costs, that to get anything going you need more currency than any ordinary person with a job and other things to do, wont see drop in an entire league. A Hack n Slash game like POE should be about you making the C you really like playing a you just killing stuff hopíng for drops, NOT EXPECTING drops. And the fucking crafting system, name me another hack n slash where you could just make items from the ground up. There isn't one. Stuff drops from killing mobs and you modify them, the crafting in this game has taken a turn towards MMO games where you farm mats and make items. This is not good, it drives inflation, especially since crafted items are so impossibly powerful that nothing that could ever drop is as good as crafted items. All bad. What is implicit in this is also the fact that these players like empyrian and steelmage and the likes drive inflation not just of cost but of item value through the roof almost instantly in a league. I have been playing very very little the past few leagues as i dont like the direction of POE, but also because I CANT SELL ANYTHING! Nothing that drops outside red influenced juiced to the gills maps are worth ANYTHING, not to mention those items are so cheap that no one wants anything else! And over time the entire game is balanced around people having these types of items, and them having a C doing 2mill+ dps not to mention being insanely tanky not to get 1 shot by every other mob. Its not that the game is impossibly hard, its just the information you need to know what you need to know to make the game playable is getting to a point where you could, as a completely new player, dig into the insane amount of data you need to crunch to learn how 8 years of league mechanics and crafting works alone and with eachother. Or you could just start the educational journey of becoming a neurosurgeon. DO NOT BALANCE THE GAME AROUND PEOPLE MAKING MONEY OF IT! look at World of warcraft for christs sake. I dont agree with everything GGG is doing, but I like that the top end players are suffering, they are hollowing out this game for their own profits and its a good thing that ordinary people doing mainly yellow maps can actually sell an item for a couple of chaos now and then, imagine them being able to farm that 1 item they really want and actually getting it. PREPOSTEROUS.

[@Count_Virgil]

@@ivpiv5933 I agree with a few of the things you've stated here, like about the barrier-to-entry is too high due information overload, and not balancing the game around people who have buying power, but your assessment of what's causing the problems in the economy are not correct. Juicers are not the issue with the economy. Yes, they make shit tons of money but they aren't buying anything significant from the market, except more juice. They have dedicated crafters and dedicated group play, so they are mostly a stand-alone system. Anything they need, they can get themselves. But what they do do, is put more stuff into the economy they don't need because of their self-sufficiency, and that trickles down to other players, who can then get their shit for cheap because they are producing excess. This process is the same for crafters... Even a "Bricked" pinnacle craft is an upgrade for the next person in line, and eventually everyone -should- get what they need. The issue with inflation IS in fact, the difficulty of the game now. GGG has raised the requirements of what is needed to succeed, even at a base level. Before, you only needed Capped Res. Then they made it so you need Capped res and small defenses investment (I.E. some block, leech, Dodge -removed-). Now you need Capped Res, Max Res, chaos res, a large defense investment, Spell suppression, Corrupted blood immunity, all while maintaining high levels of damage. And this kind of gear is NOT cheap, and smart players know that this shit is not cheap. 6 years ago, a budget build was 50c. 4 years ago it was 2 Ex, 2 years ago it was 5ex and now it's somewhere between 10-20 divines due to the changes... (Divines are the next exalts for anyone who doesn't know yet) . And so that brings us to now... I want to reiterate that I agree that balancing around top tier players is never a good idea, because you actually can't "stop" them. Top Tiers players are always going to do what the most efficient thing available is, and people will emulate their strategies. However, the more people who blast creates more competition in the market and drives prices down, this is good. But since these strong players who are leaving due these nerfs are gone, the trickling is finished... So now, only the people who remain control the market, and the rare shit they find is gonna be HUGELY overpriced, again, due to them knowing the difficulty makes certain items valuable. Full res cap and 3mil dps isn't enough for Uber Sirus, so good luck getting that Massive Thread of Hope or an affordable Awakened Gem from Maven. That's GGGs fault, not the Juicers. Chris is so obsessed with crushing us, because he doesn't like his game being trivialized, but every game these days get destroyed like that. We have so much information, and someone apparently has a lot of time, but if you look at any newly released game, they are completely beaten within 1-2 days. Games with 5 years production, conquered in less than a week, and PoE is no exception, especially considering the amount of compounding knowledge the existing players have. If they don't tone down the difficulty of the game, then the gearing requirements are going to remain expensive. And Lastly, if you want to point fingers at spikes in the economy caused by Content Creators, then look at any of them who create build guides. They test and certify performance first (using items are cheap when they start), and if they succeed their audience will invest into that market of items. demand will be higher than supply, if the build is meta, it inflates, and the CCs sell their gear at the newly inflated prices to make currency off their viewerbase. THIS is the real culprit.

[@kchuen]

@@jaredekle2562 Yeah. I started playing this game because of viable non-meta builds. Now good luck with doing any of that. Last I played was two leagues ago and there wasn’t any viable melee builds which didn’t require 100 ex to be end game viable. Seems crazy to me one type of the most popular beginners’ favourite builds is locked behind that much currency.

[@SilverionX]

I'm happy you made this video. I played PoE for a good while but eventually got tired of having to start over again and again because every time I start in a new league I always end up getting burned out before getting to endgame and quitting. I have been thinking for the past few months of just playing standard or whatever it's called so I can actually get beyond the base maps and see some of the cool stuff. It seems better to wait now since they made some very heavy nerfs and they should walk some of them back. Wait or play now before they potentially ruin it even more, that's the question.

[@phoenix402]

it really doesnt matter anymore whether you play standard, hardcore, ssf or league content. they're truly managed to already suck the fun out of all of it. i've already quit after years of playin, it's just too far gone now from the poe i used to love. honestly, save your time and invest it elsewhere, some place where you can actually have fun. maybe the eventual poe2 release will fix things, but for now playing is really just not worth it.

[@SilverionX]

@@phoenix402 Well, I never did get to end game, my highest characters were in the 80-90 range and had just started to go from the first maps. I imagine there's still a lot of content for me to explore. The loot nerf seems to hinder progression (and fun) a lot though. Maybe I'll wait and see if the roll it back.

[@Summit_of_Industry]

hey man as a volunteer working with mental health support group, I appreciate you mentioning that, thank you.

[@nickking6525]

Very well worded and thought out summary. Thanks for this Ziggy, and hopefully GGG will take another look at these things

[@InfoRanker]

That’s why i like being a casual player, I’d never notice this stuff. 😊

[@Robicalable]

Hi Ziggy, just monetize the video... This is still content, the video still requires work. The "drama" doesn't change that. That said, raising problems is as needed as bringing discoveries and positive feedback. There is a BIG difference between creating drama for content, and actually reporting issues of that scale. You don't have to punish yourself for the situation, especially when you obviously tried to take a step back and analyze/synthetize. JUST MONETIZE YOUR WORK. Thanks Ziggy anyway !

[@ludoshun1116]

not really a good advice, make some for monetize keep mind away from the real porpouse dude, sorry but what you state is shame by my side.

[@jundrayling9576]

Good summary vid Zig, and good call for chill at the end as well 👍

[@Daergarz]

Almost took a week or two off work to dive into 3.19. Thanking my lucky star that I decided not to this time!

[@miliardooz82]

I did I played the first day and got to maps and then just spun my wheels

[@riveteye93]

Don't let the reddit trick you, league is fun

[@masterarms2]

League not fun, no loot, rares are stronger then map bosses and sometimes end game bosses and even you do kill them you get 2-3 rare items.........

[@ChunkyCoffee]

@@riveteye93 Bud, if even the top supportive streamers who rarely say anything bad are having a bad time it's not a "reddit whining" issue anymore it's a game issue.

[@ThaGamingMisfit]

Wow you rather work than play a game, what has the world come to !

[@Grumpah]

"What's the point of playing softcore trade if you can't juice?" 100%! In my opinion ARPGs are supposed to have the most loot, loot 'splosions...not sure what GGG was thinking, unless this was tencents doing. I been playing since 2013 and now I'm thinking I'm done until PoE2 comes out, just been disappointed for over a year now :( thanks for keeping us up to date ziggy

[@ArnoKabi]

I think the underlying problem with GGG is that they have completely focused their assets on PoE2. So their A-team is building PoE2 and their less experienced B-team is doing PoE1. If you work in IT industry you have seen it before. Skeleton crew or newbies are manning the "legacy" projects and bored seniors are shuffled to greenfield projects or they will quit. B-team does not have that "gut feeling" that 10 year senior has about "small changes" that are actually very significant to the feel of the product.

[@excaligaming2435]

idk, seems like the janitor took over that legacy project.

[@TheSygear]

Not buying it sorry. It doesn't take much time to look over the changes and say "good, decent, shit". Chris is there aswell. They just don't care or were REALLY lucky in the past.

[@codranine6054]

Dude you better hope so.

[@symphonor]

While this might be one of the reasons, I think there is another important aspect to it. I think the idea of making PoE 1 and 2 to be the same game is the main problem. When you release a new game, it is better to not put too many content into it. So there is rooms to add more later and to not overwhelm new players too much. PoE has a decade of enormous content that I feel if they are all get carried over to PoE 2, GGG won't have enough room to make expansions for another decade. That's why I think they feel the need to tone everyting down.

[@TehCheat3]

Chris has said over and over again that they are slowly integrating PoE 2 into PoE. This is not some "A team B team" shit. This IS PoE 2. All the awful shit getting put into the game is PoE 2.

[@rickysrighteyebrow8167]

Nailed it. Thanks for articulating this in a very reasonable, measured and meaningful way.

[@SokarEntertainment]

Given the scale of the problem, I can't believe they didn't immediately revert, and postponed these design changes to next league. They are effectively purging players atm.

[@MrPrankmastergeneral]

they think they know better. When I saw Empy doing the chaos recipe, I knew it was all over.

[@scewt]

@@MrPrankmastergeneral Empy group always does chaos recipe. Its the most time efficient in the early stages of the league for literally anyone to do.

[@JH-vw3mr]

Really good summary, I appreciate the difficult balancing act you have of representing the playerbase, but also not wanting to burn bridges with GGG.

[@catmasterOP]

Thanks! Excellent summary, Ziggy! Chris Wilson Baeclast soon?

[@xeemis]

I liked that advice at the end, i think people forget the impact of games on their mental health and this should be a time for them to find something else they also like

[@KhannUurrr]

100% feels like they've cashed in all their good will and trust. Lots of not telling us about sweeping changes in a row hurts

[@Reshapable]

I wouldn't go that far. But that's because I experienced the full decline of WoW (and Blizz in general). This doesn't feel anywhere close to that. But it is uncomfortably familiar waters.

[@Yautah]

@@Reshapable Actually it depends on the individual, everyone has it's own breaking point. Mine was last league.

[@h00db01i]

@@Yautah can't refer to "everyone" with "it's", needs to be "their". also "it's" = "it is", the correct version of that pronoun would be "its" (compare: his, not he's - hers, not her's). thank me later

[@Yautah]

@@h00db01i sure, thanks. English isn't my native language.

[@LovelessArcana]

Thanks Ziggy & that ending bit about taking care is necessary for so many right now I'm sure. Much love man.

[@OlivierCombe]

You also forgot the infamous swap of divines & exalts (one more thing to add the list of complaints)

[@alilweeb7684]

yeah now the economy is fucked because there are dozens of exalt cards for literally one of divine, and it drops from a boss

[@nohvis4435]

GGG:" We deduced that players should have to waste more time, getting what they want."

[@danievdw]

Very well put together. a Whole range of broken promises, and ninja nerfs, and unscrupulous PR tactics, have brought PoE to a point where we are finally all sharpening the pitchforks .

[@riveteye93]

Speak for yourself, I'm loving this league. I want more nerfs, honestly.

[@masterarms2]

@@riveteye93 Here comes the White Knight. You know why the white knights armor is white, its cause they don't get into the thick of things and are just there to look good. Stay trolling Mr. White Knight

[@alaric_]

@@riveteye93 Good for you if you like it. Just realize that you are in the minority.

[@popijam2]

@@riveteye93 Dude if you really want a harder game, don't use 6 link for your main skill, keep it to 3 or 4. Don't upgrade your gear, just use scuffed ones you found in acts til Maven. Don't even ascend, just use your base class. There, pick any of your desired nerf. Don't ruin this game for majority of people just because you're a huge masochist.

[@danievdw]

@@riveteye93 Your name and comment suggest you are a 9 year old just here to troll.

[@FantusyFailure]

It's incredible to see just how quickly the tone of the community can shift from one league to the next. Its like a complete 180.

[@korcidiamond3623]

And now?? Obviously the new league patch notes turned the game 180...

[@madmaskbass]

Thanks mate summed it up without delving into the mega negative. Love the mental health words at the end, Much respect. Maybe my build is better than I thought or my meagre looting skills have increased because I seem to be able to keep a steady progress of upgrades and progression. This is all I ask from the game. Mega juicing 200c maps on the second/third day is not...It feels like maybe GGG were trying to slow down the 1%ers a bit to keep them in the game longer rather than blasting to God tier in a week and leaving entirely after a month.

[@McKennasFeverDream]

What kind of COPIUM are you smoking and can I have some?

[@jpoffandi]

Thanks for the video, I never keep up with social media for this sort of thing and I find it difficult to parse forums, so this is very helpful!

[@Gnejs86]

Great sum up, one part that I feel was missing was the Divine orb changes. Apart from being unreasonable, it is also now more or less impossible to reroll mod values, since the orb is too expensive to warrant use unless it's on a mageblood or ashes, and the harvest + leo divine was removed. Fully switching from exalt to divine as the big currency also seems very unnecessary, just removing the vendor recipe to make the divine orb more rare would have been enough. So many shitty changes this league that this one ends up in the shadows.

[@jackrabbit1704]

Exactly, it's like a country, e.g. America declairing the dollar is worthless, and we now all have to accept that idea that Peso's are worth more & Have to use them, despite their print being of lower quality. Pointless, and dangerous thing to do in any economy, skrewing over a majority of players not favored by rng.

[@osirisianplays8089]

thank you for sharing, ziggy. i hope that these problems get resolved soon 🙂

[@BoooBoooKaaa]

Yeah, last league I tilted out of the game due to Archnemesis mechanics being a default rare mob thing. Definitely sitting this one out with the loot/craft nerfs as a fan of SSF. I enjoy the game for it's difficulty, but there is a line that got crossed in that direction.

[@GrumpyPapaJim]

Haven’t played in 4-5 leagues (but 2k hours) but was feeling something was not right. Thanks for the explanation. Back to waiting for poe2 👍

[@ZephWraen]

Great video, Ziggy. Very well put together, and presented in a calm and measured way that still managed to hit everything important.

[@Waahh]

Everything about the presentation of the situation to the levelheadedness that you broke it down with is genuinely impressive. Your advice at the end really hit home too. Well done.

[@devilmaz]

What bothers me most of all is how frequently this has been happening. This is just the latest in what now feels like years of community backlash and fall off. GGG have been so deaf to their community to defend their vision that they've moved away from a celebrated indie studio, and are feeling more like a Blizzard, who speaks down to and ignores the community. Even when Chris tried to rectify the community disconnect and took to Baeclast for in depth discussions (basically to defend his stance in every instance) it had the opposite effect for me. That move didn't reconnect me with him and the game, it caused me to walk away because my concerns as like many others were met with a hard line of "we know best" and arrogance. It's their game, it's their choice. But at the end of the day if they continue to alienate and ignore their community, the game will suffer and fall off the radar. I've personally lost respect for the studio in the couple of years. And that honestly makes me very sad indeed. It's not my choice to feel like that, it's a situation they put me in.

[@Canceraq]

One of the best of your videos m8 actually. Very well done Side note: I have recently tried Last Epoch, and if they execute multiplayer, trading and extra endgame content, Poe is in trouble imo. And I have been playing Poe exclusively for the past 9 years. Lets hope for the best. Stay sane ZiggyD

[@Timbosliceintheflesh]

LE is dope. but needs the things you said for sure. Game feels good for most builds now tho.

[@Canceraq]

@@Timbosliceintheflesh I haven't got as much time to play as I used to, and LE to me seems like casual PoE. Apart from what's still missing, I absolutely love some of LE qol, respeccing is awesome, crafting pretty Simple but seems great - deterministic but rng at the same time. I have only played one character to like monolith 85 though

[@Timbosliceintheflesh]

@@Canceraq it's a great foundation, but a small team so it'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off in a timely manner.

[@strombolijones4255]

Chris is just forcing Hard Mode down everyone’s throat league by league.

[@flyingpigmonkey1]

Good reminder at the end. I might have missed it but I didn't hear a mention of how these nerfs were snuck in without hitting the patch notes. Very sneaky.

[@toukoenriaze9870]

I've been saying this since 3.15 We went from a good core game with the occasional bad league that you were willing to play through cuz the game was good ... To a bad game that is heavily being carried by whatever the current league mechanic is and if that mechanic is bad the entire game feels bad

[@isaaca9956]

this is absolutely right, the game is more and more surely moving toward death, and ggg doesn't even give a shit anymore

[@Karonar]

I have been saying it for years: Its just about time GGG fucks up just not occasionally, but completly. And people still go "OMG they will fix it" When other companies fuck up they just burn down the house...

[@zekulir6419]

I want to ask, quite bluntly, why? I have been playing this game on and off and played a vast majority of its leagues since it came out and I do not feel this in any way.

[@MichaelPohoreski]

IMHO PoE jumped the shark with the copy-pasta 10 Act campaign. Who the hell _buffs Act 1_ ??? The game needs _more_ casuals, not less. Currently there are a total of 487 gems in 3.19. *How much more bloat* does the game need when SO many gems are useless???

[@zekulir6419]

@@MichaelPohoreski I like the act changes.

[@maxnibler6090]

Great video. Steelmages clip did kinda sum it up for me. I'm ssf but haven't hit the stage where I need to craft end game gear yet. So I'm not feeling this as bad as most players. But I can see myself immediately dropping the league if I do reach that point before they've made adjustments

[@Beefadin]

As each expansion passes I seem to always have the same question in my mind "Why does GGG seem unwilling to have their game playable, enjoyable and rewarding?" Personally fed up of having to start fresh every 3 months, especially as the campaign is dull and monotonous, only to hit maps and find GGG has nerfed everything and only 1 or 2 builds will work but only with either 100s of hours grinding like mad or 100s of exalts invested. Personally I no longer play as much as I did, would regularly get to mid 90s and into end game content, these days 80 and yellow maps is an achievement before the grind gets to me. If this is a ploy to push the community away from PoE and into PoE2 then it's a dumb mindset to have

[@ludoshun1116]

exactly. the game have to be playable, enjoyable and rewarding then getting often suddenly shot even the res are all high and does not matter if even life/armour/evasion/energy shield/ chance of block etc.,anyway you ll get one shot and almost all the times i even can not understand why! is so difficult to make it fun for all and give opportunity to reach the last boss kill and the others too for all instead to make it impossible for a lot of user and possible for only nerds! also the trade price which only nerds can control because who can have even 12 divine in this season, not me for sure ,i just find 1 lol and this does not give opportunity to take any good gear for make a good build " make it by nerd " perhaps payed by the GGG , lol!

[@amyclas]

I was thinking about trying the current league. then i found this video. thanks for saving my time!

[@Panda_SMM]

The mental health aspect you talked about at the end is something to be taken very seriously in my opinion. I didn't go on reddit, or watch any streams for my first 1-2 sessions playing, and by the time I was in late yellow maps I finally took a look at what people were talking about. My friends and I in discord were talking about how drops seem to be less, and the difficulty high. After getting some investment into gear, now I am clapping t16's pretty easily even before these nerfs, but it could just be the product of the kind of build I am playing. Generally, my experience was "it'll probably get fixed and get better in the incoming days, just gotta give it a little bit of time, but in the meantime I am still having fun for the most part, even if it isn't perfect." This was about the time I took the first look at reddit, only to see overwhelming negativity. At first, I mostly found it funny, like the usual kind of things where "yeah people are going to complain, it'll get better" like I mentioned before. However, the negativity did not stop and it became volatile, it was actually so overwhelming to see the comparison of my experience being mostly "this is alright, but it should be more in line with what it was before, and GGG is pretty consistent when it comes to fixing these kind of things" to people's responses of "I am literally quitting after 10k+ hours into the game" mentality. It's to such an extent that it makes me feel like I should be getting less enjoyment from the game BECAUSE of the response, although it's not indicative to my own personal thoughts. This is why I mentioned at the start that the mental health aspect is important, other people being this negative (even if SOME of it is warranted) has an effect on other people, myself included, and people don't care about that and just want to continue lashing out. I am self-aware enough that I know it shouldn't effect me, but ultimately it does, and in a negative way. Regardless, I am still enjoying myself and knowing that they are still pushing to make the game better for people additionally helps. I get that people can be frustrated by changes, and be vocal about it, but I personally feel people really need to remember they are just human beings, capable of flexibility with the product we all enjoy to whatever extent we put into it.

[@DustinHarms]

Completely agree. I've been having a ton of fun, and while I did notice some of the concerns, my friends and I were still really enjoying the league. I was straight up dumbfounded to see the backlash all around the internet about it. People are being straight up entitled babies, lashing out at GGG and going absolutely nuts. Folks need to learn to give feedback without being so drastic and mean. GGG has been one of the freaking best game companies out there and really make an effort to connect with the community, so it makes me sad that even they are receiving so much hate because a *game* isn't exactly what everyone expected. Anyway, don't mean to rant, thank you for your comment, I relate.

[@666iiviietal666]

Huge respect Ziggy, that intro alone has me lookin at you in a new light dude... well said and well played

[@MichaelDahlkvist]

Thank you for providing this levelheaded summary, while frustration can lead to discussions sounding childlike and at sometimes abusive towards GGG i feel like this approach is so much better and may lead to something constructive.

[@elLooto]

I can remember a long time ago, when the issue with alch-and-go mapping was sustaining maps. Now the issue with alch-and-go mapping is sustaining alchs.

[@SonOfAntalis]

This is the fastest I have quit a league. I can't get into the AN changes at all. They are to often oppressive in general design and that they are now in all content. Couple that with other changes and GGG's "what we are working on" post I am just done.

[@maltardraco9555]

Haven't played since Heist and I stand with you, my fellow exiles!

[@NJungArt]

Thank you for not only the very informative video, but also the very solid advice of disengaging when the negativity gets too much. That's the very reason I was hoping you of all people would make a video, as I know you'd be constructive and not resort to petty rage.

[@MrVvulf]

0:20 ZiggyD - massive praise to you my man. There are so many "content creators" who do little more than stir the pot of discordance on YT - the grievance gurus. Disabling monetization and the reason you did so are greatly appreciated. I already had a high opinion of you, but it's gone up again.

[@gampie13]

frankly, if ggg says they wil "adjust/buff/improve/tune/change" any mechanic, it is now the exact same thing, as them saying they will decimate that mechanic, and i'm actualy using the word decimate correctly here, not just figurativly....

[@JezzyHsu]

Well decimate is actually just destroying 10% so it’s not the accurate usage XD. Maybe annihilation?

[@gampie13]

@@JezzyHsu I played on the wording a bit, as decimate was out of 10, as in 1 in 10, but i forgot that only 1 in 10 was killed, and not the other way around, sry

[@JezzyHsu]

@@gampie13 no need to be sorry. I was surprised when I learned about that too! But I totally agree with you, GGG is so heavy handed in their “tuning”

[@matador428]

Adding a comment to get this on KZbin algorithm just in case newer players don’t know you. This was a great commentary and essay on things occurring and your thoughts. Appreciate the time you took on this because it did help me get more insight on the issues. While we may be frustrated let’s take that step back and just remember we are humans talking to each other and to treat each other with respect even if we have different opinions. Much love exiles

[@gnth9552]

During my time playing PoE, I have helped over 400 players design/upgrade their build in-depth. I've seen DPS numbers so low the devs may not even know they exist, and I've seen how impossible it can be for players to engage in low-tier timed content like Betrayal without A) dying or B) not dealing enough damage in the time they have. I came here to check whether my decision to quit several leagues ago was justified or not. And a lot of the things that seem to have happened since were already major reasons for why I quit, it's shocking to see that they have gotten worse yet. Back then, crafting got harder/more limited, mobs got progressively more difficult. The reintroduction of Harvest back then was quite disappointing already and the 40% player nerf was around the corner. I could never shake the impression that GGG tried their very hardest to finally keep the top 0.0001% of players in check, while completely overlooking the much larger part of the playerbase that literally fell off at the low end because they couldn't afford the increased time cost to make progress, and potentially didn't want to follow a meta build and thus end up in maps with some 20-40k DPS at best BEFORE getting slapped by multiple nerfs. I also really didn't like what I heard about changes to several defense systems. While it's good that some were changed to be more accessible, they have also been made less scalable and defense was already something that you couldn't spec into enough. There were no sufficient gambits for beginners who say "I'm tired of dying, I'd rather lose DPS in some form but gain defense that doesn't cost me an arm, a leg and hours of DMing traders". If that was you, good luck with drops (yes, loot drops still existed back then), but you might as well quit if you're in that spot on your first char without any help. All in all it is safe to say that PoE is becoming more and more hardcore, at an extremely rapid pace. I hope to see some new ARPG contenders that cater to the lower end of the playerbase that Krillson doesn't want any longer.

[@kaedriz]

I wonder what's holding them back from giving players power fantasy they want? Are they afraid that people would complete their builds faster and then quit? That's already happening, just without completing build part. I would actually play couple unique builds, if i could farm them in reasonable amount of time. I'm not wasting a week of full day grinding in hope I progress my build(someone's else build, but this later) And that BIG skill tree? Majority of players don't even know what are they picking up, just lookup what's in Path Of Building and continue farming. And I don't blame them, if they didn't do so from the start, they could even have some problems completing campaign. PoE now feels like P2W game, but you can't pay, so you are forced to grind, and grind some more. If that's their model, sure, but I'm not sure how long can they stay profitable. Remeber, you want to people to be happy to buy stuff from you, not engrage them. I last played some leagues ago, but when they announced that you could personalize your loot to your liking, i thought that was step forward. I don't know what came from that next, but seeing people reactions, they probably nerfed it as well. My only wish, from this wall of text, is that they give us players casual mode. Normal mode, where we can actually drop good loot, that is not like 0.00001% chance. But then, this is just my wish. If they don't cater in some way or another, well, have fun you all grinding chaos orbs.

[@HDJess]

I can safely say I haven't had fun in PoE for several years now. And you're right, this balancing around the 'no-life' players (top 0.1% or so) is a disease, since it leaves the majority of players who either don't want to follow a build on the internet (yep, like myself) or don't have enough time to invest in hoarding tons of currency to make a build work. (Yes, me also).

[@andriiechkenko6767]

I suggest all players to respond to the disrespect and unprofessionalism towards the players from ggg to ignore the game until the game returns to a playable state

[@ivayloindzhov8553]

Thank you for being a very rational, calm and respectful voice, Ziggy! I usually put in around 200 hours per league, and the last 3-4 leagues have been increasingly more fun for me. I managed to achieve the greatest progression ever in Sentinel, as I had enough currency to get good gear. What I sorely miss lately is the fact that the game has become SO rippy, that you are obligated to have three defensive auras, max spell suppression and tons of other defense just to not die all the time - leaving very few actually viable builds. Now I just have a worse time all across the board - less gear, less currency, worse monsters than ever before, and therefore mind bogglingly slow progression. I have an average of 2 hours per day to play, and a bit more on weekends - if I manage to do 25-30 maps in those 2 hours and all I have in the end is zero progress, then the game is just not for me anymore. And that was not the case the last 5+ leagues, that's the part that hurts...

[@Johnoez]

I feel "Very upset" is beyond the realm of understatement territory

[@knappieboy]

Why does it feel as of late, that many game devs WANT to get rid of a portion of their player base? Blizzard is well known for this "we hear what you want but were going to do it this way instead".

[@zekulir6419]

Problem with POE is that it has 2 opposite types of players. There is, quite literally, no way to please everybody.

[@graboid3362]

@@zekulir6419 cant imagine removing everyone's loot pleases anyone.

[@zekulir6419]

@@graboid3362 Have you played this league, how far are you into it? Genuine question. Loot wasnt deleted as people make it sound. Ultimately, you also buy most of your items from other people. If some random ID rare is 5c then yaknow who to blame

[@graboid3362]

@@zekulir6419 I play every league and complete all content every time. not that it even matters because as much as you would like to dance around basic math, you cannot. A 50-95% reduction in drops is massive. Even if it were less than that it would be huge and has widespread effects on the economy. Those items that you are buying from other people, not 5c trash gear but actual endgame gear, is going to cost way more while you are making way less.

[@zekulir6419]

@@graboid3362 Yeah its a big reduction and some might like that. Thats the point. If currency is the only issue, once again, talk to the guy listing the item cause it aint ggg.

[@DF-hl2ds]

Thanks for summarizing the issues. I’m a long time “casual”, never slayed the maven or anything, so much of the complaints were over my head.

[@Aidopunko]

I think what bothers me most about AN rares is how unnecessary the increased difficulty is for the game. PoE already introduced mechanics that scale existing mechanics to higher difficulty through delirium. Most of the league mechanics (heist, delve etc) already scale mob health to higher levels than what you would get in a map of the same tier. On top of seemingly endless buffs to monster health and endless nerfs to player damage they have added AN mods that stack extra damage and hp MULTIPLICATIVELY to every corner of the game. Essence monsters and Metamorphs are ridiculous. There isn't any part of the game left where I can relax and grind, it is 100% adrenaline and cortisol for everything that isn't me just afking in hideout. The game feels utterly terrible to play, it makes your build feel like trash in every map. I have zero hope for PoE2 and it feels like the game is in a death spiral.

[@Cardb33]

Right? I'm on a tanky RF character running Essences (Would be running Harvest but that's just not happening in it's current state) and I'm terrified running them cause I die 2-3 times to get some random Essences. It's horrible. Being RF you need to get close to them but the amount of damage they do and the stupid amount of life they have make it impossible. Add in that a lot of them seem to have this nova of sorts that completely chunk my 80 Max Fire Res plus Ailment Immunity. Even worse than that, part of Essences being good is doubling them but it's so damn impossible now. I thought my build was bad but then I realized everyone else is suffering too. They really destroyed the game.

[@NineSeptims]

@@Cardb33 Im rf too lucky for us essence doesnt scale with map tier or map mods. I have been farming essence in t1 strand making 5 divines an hour.

[@kesh4171]

@@NineSeptims How are you making that kind of money? What essence sells for real good? They all seem mediocre in price right now.

[@NineSeptims]

@@kesh4171 your main money is drom corrupting the 4 purple essences into the special essences

[@NineSeptims]

@@kesh4171 the rest you bulk sell in stacks of 9

[@timcalhoun5797]

So eloquently summarized. Well done, Ziggy.

[@kevinvanniekerk7558]

Im a casual player that has been playing POE for years. Casual i mean i dont rush leveling nor properly researching the most lucrative farming strategies. I play for fun. I do what is fun for me with a build to support that. It feels as if GGG is moving further and further away for casuals like me. Slowing progression to a point where i get bored of the game. Making everything unnecessarily difficult. Like the sheer amount of ailments monsters apply. obviously just my opinion.

[@1320crusier]

Playing through the game to get to maps as a casual is an annoying, tedious, chore. Its boring, repetitive, and not rewarding. I very much liked the idea of level based end game. Every league they make some stupid change that just feels like they are creating content the way South Park parodied Family Guy's manatee process.

[@Hamolightning]

@ZiggyD Gaming Thank you for being you, and thank you being calm, collected and not wanting to cash in on drama, very much on brand and on person for you, love you, and the content you make, thank you

[@Kobalstromo]

You also failed to mention that after their incredibly tepid and as you put it “conservative” response. They used a “what we’re working on” post to shill the kalandra mystery box and kirac battle pass. Many people in the community, myself included, felt that was incredibly tone deaf. “We understand you’re unhappy with how things are but we are going to do little about it. Now buy our mtx.” There is a rift forming between the devs and playerbase, there’s a lot of people looking elsewhere for fun due to where ggg is steering the game.

[@Cat_vs_Jad]

I quit before the league even started, because the balance manifesto made it very clear that I would not like the direction GGG are taking. I questioned the reasoning behind all of it, and determined that they are completely out of touch. Now, it comes with no suprise that the community is also shocked at the direction GGG is going, despite me being very vocal about this in the POE discord over the last few months, and the POE ssf discord. Not only did people think I was crazy, but they also told me it would never happen. Well here we are exiles.

[@ApocDevTeam]

The looming sense that this is what GGG is going to be doing from here on out (nerfing items/loot, making players slower, not buffing underused skills etc.) just demotivates so many people. In the past I always looked forward to a new update/patch because they'd buff some skills that nobody plays anymore and added new content that dropped juicy loot. Now I feel like those days are behind us. It just feels like they're slowly gutting the game one step at a time to prepare us for their vision for PoE2. It just feels so out of touch because of how much people love the "old PoE".

[@DanboReviews]

11:22 Very important point. Thank you Ziggy for being such a lovely dood

[@btarczy5067]

I really hope that GGG doesn’t die on the hills of Archnemesis being good and deterministic crafting being bad. While I am addicted to the game and have to force myself to stop playing even now - sometimes without success - this can not go on forever.

[@angel373bcn]

I'm 100% sure GGG's response to this is going to be "we got death threats, you guys are bad" and call it a day.

[@TerminallyNerdy]

When I did my first 3 Alva incursions in Act 7, each one gave me 2 white items. That was it. No more lootsplosion. No good feeling. I am tired of Wilson and the POE team doing stuff like this, doing heavy handed nerfs and then slowly undoing them when the community gets angry. So I am done with POE I think. There are plenty of other ARPGs out there where I dont have to worry about this sort of thing from the devs like Last Epoch, Van Helsing, Grim Dawn, Torchlight 2, Diablo 2/3, and so on.

[@lollyblizowo4343]

I think the fact that _ziggyd_ is weighing in, calm and polite and controlled and thorough, is going to function like a very diplomatic brick through the proverbial window as ggg. I _hope_ it does. You, sir, have been the official qna mouthpiece for ages and ages. For you to stand up and say This Isn't Right is _powerful_